How do mosquitoes cause malaria?

Actually, mosquitoes don’t cause malaria themselves, they just transmit it from one person to another! The disease is actually caused by a tiny parasite, of the genus Plasmodium, several species of which infect humans. Part of the parasite’s life cycle takes place in the human host, and the other part in the mosquito; it needs to go through both to survive. Mosquitoes become infected when they feed on the blood of a human host that is infected; the parasites are then transmitted to a new, uninfected human hosts in the mosquitoes saliva, when they again take a blood meal.

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The WorldWide Antimalarial Resistance Network (WWARN) generates innovative resources and reliable evidence to inform the malaria community on the factors affecting the efficacy of antimalarial medicines. Learn more…